At first blush, Lobsang Dargey seemed to epitomize the American dream.

The 43-year-old former monk, who married the sister of tennis legend Andre Agassi, arrived in the United States in 1997 as an immigrant from rural Tibet speaking no English, according to a 2014 profile in the Puget Sound Business Journal.

With only a second-grade education, Dargey opened a painting business, worked as a Sprint salesman, and then became a real-estate developer who raised tens of millions of dollars for ventures in Washington state, where he lives, according to court records and the profile.

Much of his success lay in wooing wealthy Chinese citizens through the United States EB-5 foreign investment program, which grants permanent residency in exchange for investments in businesses that create jobs. Some 282 immigrant investors contributed around $153.6 million to two of Dargey's approved projects, court documents said.